


Pause in mid-stride

by MadHatter13



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: ("dysfunctional hardly covers it but i couldn't find a better tag), (implied rather than explicit and only attempted not successful), Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Corpse Desecration, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Podfic Welcome, Suicidal Thoughts, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 02:19:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18907507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: Angua runs away from her family after the murder of her sister Elsa. First, however, some things need taking care of.





	Pause in mid-stride

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was based on the question of whether the three empty spots in the hall of taxidermied animal mounts in the von Uberwald castle in Fifth Elephant were meant not just for whatever the pack hunted next, but for three very specific targets. Namely, Wolfgang's three siblings. Is he fucked up enough to keep trophies of the siblings he has tried (and in Elsa's case, succeeded) to murder? My guess is a definite yes.
> 
> I'm sorry guys this gets pretty dark - content warnings for implied attempted corpse desecration, sororicide, hasty cremation and some suicidal ideation. Let me know if this needs more tags/warnings.
> 
> Title comes from the Mountain Goats song 'Luna', which I listened to on repeat while writing this. I've always thought it was very applicable to Angua.

The snow is even on the ground, the dry kind of powder that, at least for the next hour, will swirl up in a cloud when you kick it. It‘s not ideal conditions for being on the run, but then again Angua expects to have at least an hour‘s lead before they come after her. She tore him up bad enough that it should slow him down.

But it won‘t stop him, she knows. The only way to do that would be to burn him to ash and then scatter what‘s left and hope he doesn‘t emulate their bat-like neighbours and rise up again anyway.

She‘s been dragging the sled behind her on her own for a few miles now, and werewolf strength or not, it‘s starting to wear on her. But the pack howl tells her that Gavin is out there waiting, and two wolves can pull a sled faster than one.

They meet at the edge of his forest, and to her worry his entire pack is there. They‘re always wary of her, and she‘s sure that one day Gavin‘s iron hold on them won‘t be enough and they‘ll tear her to bits. After tonight, she wishes they would.

Six wolves pull a sled - even one carrying a load - like it isn‘t even there. She leads them far past the boarder of the von Uberwald territory, until they‘re deep in the dense pine forest that clings on grimly to the cliffs above the outskirts of Lower Bonk. The mines there haven‘t been open for centuries, but the old mine shaft is still there; it just takes a couple of human hands to break the timbers that closes it. Angua transforms and pulls on the clothes she‘d somehow had the good sense to grab, along with a heavy blanket she pulls over her shoulders. The pack shies away from her, uncomfortable with her shape, but Gavin pushes his nose into her palm. She somehow manages a crooked smile, although it won‘t mean anything to him, and then looks around at the sparse soil and ground that is frozen hard as granite. That won‘t do.

Although it sets her teeth on edge, she goes into the abandoned silver mine, and finds an old but dry stack of heavy timbers. Probably they were originally joists meant to roof the shaft, but they‘re the only wood close by that isn‘t frozen or soaked.

It takes a long time to carry all of them up, and then arrange them into a pyre. Her shoulders cramp and her feet – she hadn‘t been smart enough to bring shoes – grow numb and painful by turns, from the cold. The wolves watch from the trees, keeping an eye out for pursuers, until Angua starts the tinder underneath the pyre. It takes a while for it to catch, but the pack still shrinks away, and doesn’t come any closer, despite the cold. They don‘t like fire.

When it‘s certain the fire won‘t go out, and has caught properly on the heavy timbers which are turning to glowing red coals, she goes back to the sled, and pulls aside the shroud that covers her baby sister.

Igor had done a nice job, cleaning her up, but it had been a clean job to start with. Probably that was the reason it didn‘t ring true when _he_ said it was an accident. Good thing she‘d doubted. Otherwise she wouldn‘t have been keeping an eye on him. She wouldn’t have seen him go down to Igor‘s morgue and realized that he was going to –

She feels the tears pouring now, but she can‘t feel anything in her head but a sort of distant ringing, like that time she punctured her eardrum. She gently brushes the snow off Elsa‘s face – it started coming down again – and tries to say ‘I’m sorry.’

She wraps her in the shroud again, and picks her up. It’s shockingly easy – Elsa was never very big, the runt of the family along with being permanently in human form. And she wasn’t very old, really just a kid despite the fact that their mother had already been looking around for a “suitable husband.”

Now she wouldn’t get any older.

She lays her gently on the now blazing pyre, despite the heat of the flames, and steps back, heedless of the burns on her hands. Anyone who spent even a little time in the company of an Igor would quickly find themselves in possession of an awful lot of knowledge they wish they didn’t have. One of Angua’s little tidbits was how to build a fire hot enough that it could easily cremate a body.

She hears the growl of the pack and whips around, murder in her heart, but it isn’t him, only Andrei, shrinking away utterly outnumbered. She signals Gavin, who gives the briefest growl, and the pack backs off, letting Andrei come to her.

Some of the world comes back and she throws herself on her knees and wraps both arms around him. Her brother whines and paws at her trousers and licks her face. He knows what happened, but he wants to know why she didn’t wait for him.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t think._

He takes a step towards the pyre when she lets go of him. Then he shudders, and lies down and cries.

They sit there together until the fire goes out, and there is only the ash. There is no profitable way to gather it up or distinguish remains from charcoal. It will scatter with the next gale, and those are plentiful around here. Andrei, who had been quiet for the last hour, looks up at her and whines. He wants to know, _why here?_

‘She –‘ Angua has to clear her throat and try again, voice too worn by disuse and (earlier) by screaming and growling herself hoarse. ‘She liked to come up here. Because the mine scared him away. I figured it was the one place where she would be left in peace.’

Suddenly they are both at terribly loose ends. Angua doesn’t want to do anything about it; she just wants to lie down and let the snow cover her. How could she come back from this anyway?

There is no going back home for them now. If home was ever real. For Andrei because what happened to Elsa might happen to him. For Angua because if she ever sees Wolfgang again, only one of them will come out of it alive, and she isn’t certain it will be her.

She shares a look with Andrei, and she can tell that he is thinking the same thing. As much as she loves her yennork brother, they cannot go together. Not only because together they will be easier to track, but because their tenuous ties are now too worn by Wolfgang’s violence to carry them much further. Maybe some of it can be repaired in the future, but for now Angua needs to disappear, to stop existing as herself so she can continue to live. She can tell that much the same applies to him.

She gives him her goodbyes, and he turns away to trot off – where to, she doesn’t know. Then she carefully packs up her clothes and ties the bundle around her throat, leaving the sled behind, before taking wolf form again. Gavin and the others will escort her out of their territory. After that she will only stop once she is sure Wolfgang isn’t still on her trail.

She does not breathe her relief until nearly ten years later.


End file.
